Hello,.

     Today, I did something for the first time in my life.  I paid for something with my debit card.

     I guess that shows you how old school…or just old…I am.  It’s not that I just got a debit card, I have had one for over 10 years.  I’ve just never used it, preferring to use cash.  For the first four decades of my life when I have made a small purchase, $20.00 or less, I would reach into my pocket and pull out “cash money”, and then hold out my hand preparing for the change that I have calculated in my head.   As it is with dogs, it is apparently so with me, it is hard to teach me a new trick.

     But today, as I was standing at the counter of the coffee shop where I was going to spend some time awaiting for my tires to be changed at the nearby mechanic shop that I use, I reached into my pocket for my cash…..and it wasn’t there.  I had left it at home.  I thought to myself that I could just skip the coffee and just sit in the coffee shop as if it was I library, but I know that’s not kosher.  Then I thought that maybe I should just walk back to the mechanic and sit in the pocket-sized waiting room for the next two hours or so….not appealing.  And then it occurred to me….I have my debit card.

     But how do I use it.  Will they take it for such a small purchase?  So, deciding to venture out onto new horizons, I pulled out my wallet, like I knew what I was doing, and ordered my coffee.  A slight shot of fear went through me when I wondered, what if when the server presented my cup of coffee, and asked for my payment something would go wrong?  What?  I don’t know?  But when you’re on your maiden voyage, you just don’t know.

     So, I tried to play it cool.  The server, having filled my medium mug of coffee with house blend, came back to the register (actually it was a computer) and said, “$2.35.” 

     I handed her my debit card.  She took it in her hand like a outfielder shagging a fly ball, slid it through the card reader, and spun the computer screen around at me.  Uh oh…just as I thought…I had no idea what to do now.  My cover was blown.  I settled myself down enough to read the screen that had a line on it and said, “signature”.  Ok…I could do that….but…..no stylus to be seen.  So sheepishly I said to her, “I don’t see anything to sign with.”

     “Just use your finger,” she said, kindly, but I was sure it was covering her utter unbelief that I didn’t already know what I should do.  Then she spun the screen back toward her, handed me my card, my coffee, and said, “Thank you.”

     If using my debit card could cause such angst in me, I can only imagine the angst that stirs up in people when they think about entering a church building if they have never done so….or if it is one that is unfamiliar to them.  Who knows what might be lying behind those doors….people who will judge me….a worship service that bewilders me and thereby leave me embarassed….a group of people who will latch on to me to meet their budget….religious fanatics…..?

     But I know that the world that I live in has a way of wringing the hope out of my soul, of crushing me with pressure and burdensome expectations, of incessantly intoning fearful and frightening words, pulling me in so many directions that my relationships and my very self feel shredded, and magnifying my wrongs so that they are the only thing I and others see in me.

     I need a place to lift me up.  To hold me together.  To overwhelm my wrongs.  To embrace me.  To mend me and my relationships.  To build me up and strengthen me in my struggles……to love me. 

     I find that place inside my church’s doors.  That is why I go through them every Sunday.  I don’t know if I would find that inside every church’s doors, but I know that is what Jesus intends to be found inside his doors, and the church doors are his.

     So, if you are like me as you live in the world you live in, let me personally invite you to walk through the doors of a church.  Of course none of what greets you inside of them will be perfect, but hopefully the angst that you feel as you pull the church door open will be met by such grace and mercy, that you, like this old dog using a debit card, just might learn a new trick!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger